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Multiple sources have reported that a paper about EmDrive has cleared peer review and will be published in December, although there is no certainty yet about whether NASA scientists have found evidence to support thrust apparently in violation of the law of conservation of momentum (and not within experimental error):
Long thought to be nothing more than a space dream, the EmDrive, a rocket propulsion technology that requires no propellant, has cleared peer review, the International Business Times reports. The new engine, first proposed 17 years ago, relies on microwaves for its thrust, which are fired into a metal cone, causing acceleration. The latest design, which will be published in the Journal of Propulsion, was the brainchild of scientists at NASA's experimental lab, Eagleworks Laboratories.
Also at Inverse.
Meanwhile, a company formed by Cannae Inc. has announced that it will launch a similar propulsion device into space to prove that it works:
On August 17, Cannae announced plans to launch its thruster on a 6U cubesat. Each unit is a 10-centimeter cube, so a 6U satellite is the size of a small shoebox. Approximately one quarter of this will be taken up by the drive. Fetta intends the satellite to stay on station for at least six months, rather than the six weeks that would be typical for a satellite this size at a altitude of 150 miles. The longer it stays in orbit, the more the satellite will show that it must be producing thrust without propellant.
Cannae has formed a company called Theseus with industrial partners LAI International of Tempe, AZ and SpaceQuest Ltd. of Fairfax, VA to launch the satellite. No launch date has yet been announced, but 2017 seems likely. "Once demonstrated on orbit, Theseus will offer our thruster platforms to the satellite marketplace," says the optimistic conclusion on their website.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 05 2016, @03:38PM
We'll throw in a flying sexbot.
I mentioned the warp drive in there. One of the authors of this upcoming paper, Harold White, is famous for his work on trying to turn the Alcubierre drive into something plausible (changing the shape of the warp bubble to reduce energy requirements, and trying to build a warp field interferometer [wikipedia.org]). Even if your hypothetical warp bubble "traveled" at less than 1c instead of being "faster-than-light", it might still avoid some of the issues associated with traveling at 0.6c or 0.1c due to the way it bends space around the ship.
Maybe if we stuff enough power output into these ships, we can talk shields (more magic).
It will make car bombs look like sparklers! We are entering into a dangerous future on many fronts, why not add emdrive to the list? Strong emdrive could make it easy to steer an asteroid into Earth. Not cheap enough for terrorists since it would take years, but it might be within the grasp of secret world destroyer Elon Musk (who would then rule all of humanity with his home base on Mars).
Sure, but Shawyer is talking about it. Rather than just flying cars, electric cars could also use the emdrive to propel. It is all within the scope of the things he is claiming (orders of magnitude more than millinewtons of thrust).
This brings up an interesting point: your cars and spaceships need emdrives on multiple sides to get the best maneuverability. For solar system travel, maybe you could put most of the emdrives on the "back", put some on the sides, and when you need to slow down, pause the back drives, do a 180° turn, and fire them up again. That's instead of putting the same amount of large drives on the back and front.
Chinese researchers claim to have replicated the results. If emdrive is real, it will spread around. It doesn't seem out of reach for garage tinkerers or startups (for better versions) either.
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